Identifying as an animal takes on extra baggage in the thin, iffy parable Wolf
For George MacKay and Lily-Rose Depp, being human ain’t all it’s cracked up to be
Film Reviews Wolf
One of this year’s Hugo nominees for Best Novelette, “Helicopter Story,” was originally published under a different title, taken from a transphobic meme: “I Sexually Identify As An Attack Helicopter.” Written by a trans woman, the story (according to its many fans) creatively interrogates that meme’s intolerance, undermining the reductio ad absurdum “argument” by treating it as something other than an obnoxious Catskills one-liner. Despite these good intentions, however, an ugly brouhaha ensued; publisher Neil Clarke wound up removing the story from his website in response to protests, an act that then sparked additional protests. It’s been sorted out now, but the retitling seems significant. For a lot of people, that comparison itself—“If you can identify as another gender, or no gender at all, you can identify as literally anything”—is so odious that it’s difficult to look past.
Wolf (no connection to 1994’s Jack Nicholson vehicle) treads through a similar minefield. The key difference is that it concerns a real-world phenomenon: people who perceive themselves as animals rather than human. Right away, this gets tricky. Search Wikipedia for “species dysphoria”—a term that comes up repeatedly in Wolf, along with “species identity disorder”—and it redirects you to an entry for “otherkin,” which also addresses self-designated elves, vampires, dragons, even fictional characters. Does it make sense to employ any of those as a trans allegory?
It’s exceedingly difficult not to experience Wolf as one, anyway. The film takes place entirely at what amounts to a conversion-therapy facility, run with an iron fist by a sadistic man known as the Zookeeper (Paddy Considine). His goal is to browbeat patients into accepting what he insists is their true nature, often by mocking and physically humiliating them. Jacob (George MacKay), who identifies as a wolf, initially seems ready, if not at all eager, to be “cured,” stifling his urge to crawl on all fours and howl at the moon. The more he witnesses of the Zookeeper’s cruelty, however, the more aggressively lupine he becomes, even as a young female wildcat (Lily-Rose Depp) begs him to stick with the program and remain there with her indefinitely.
There’s absolutely no question that writer-director Nathalie Biancheri (Nocturnal) empathizes with the otherkin, and that Wolf celebrates their desire to be fully themselves, however irrational that may appear to others. Unfortunately, there’s not much else to the movie, which by its very nature can’t really have “characters” in the conventional sense. We learn virtually nothing about Jacob apart from his desire to be a wolf; MacKay gives an admirably committed performance, crawling and howling with gusto, but he just doesn’t have much to work with, emotionally. An interspecies romance between wolf and wildcat remains equally superficial (and winds up weirdly complicated by a late-breaking, somewhat nonsensical revelation about Depp’s long-term resident). Both lead actors are upstaged by Darragh Shannon as squirrel-identifying Jeremy, whose personality is much more eager beaver; the lad’s gung-ho but ultimately futile efforts to assimilate with humanity are at once hilarious and touching.
That diversion aside, Wolf mostly prompts speculation regarding what the film means to say about being trans, a connection that Biancheri makes quite explicit at times. “You’re a girl!” the Zookeeper bellows directly into someone’s face, as tears flow from beneath the homemade parrot mask she constantly wears. “You’re a girl! Say it!” Will viewers who’ve heard such abusive commands in their own lives feel seen by this movie? Or will they bridle (so to speak) at being equated with otherkin, see it as uncomfortably adjacent to the attack helicopter absurdity? Is it insensitive to suggest that the equation is insensitive? Maybe. What’s certain is that a stronger, more searching exploration of this scenario—one not so starkly conceived in terms of victims and villains—would have gone a long way toward alleviating potential misgivings. Wolf is so thin that one can’t help but look right through it.
24 Comments
Probably just needs a lot more slo-mo scenes.
What I think of everytime I hear the attack helicopter thing:
https://hard-drive.net/transphobe-who-claimed-to-identify-as-attack-helicopter-destroyed-by-u-s-airforce/
Reminds me of https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15567986/
I loved that short on Hulu if only because I have NO idea what’s going on after the ranger shows up.
This was handled better & more sensitively it seems like in Gayle Rankin as Sheila the She-Wolf’s storyline on GLOW
GLOW is literally the only thing I can think of that treated otherkin with any sincerity and didn’t make me roll my eyes and wince.
I miss GLOW
Odd career swerve, MacKay.
My thoughts exactly.
Nothing to do with the movie but George Mackay always surprise me with how ripped he is.
You’re reviewing this movie with the clear presumption that otherkin are social pariahs, but is that the point that the MOVIE wants to make?What’s wrong with identifying as an otherkin, as an attack helicopter, as white or black? It actually makes less sense than identifying as a Christian, as a Muslim, as Buddhist, as agnostic, a Trekkie, a film critic?Any arbitrary label, self-given or not, only covers a percentage of the personality within.
People are unique and inherently unknowable; we cannot actually experience the world through their eyes. A person might be, say, 1.72 metres tall, that’s objective. But is it a short person or a tall person? Well that’s subjective. We can discuss whether they are really short or really tall, yeah? Without getting hung up on whether we should even have that conversation?
We need a Manimal reboot to truly address “species identity disorder” in the modern world.
I saw the trailer for this recently, and I was howling with laughter. This thing looks like a parody of itself.
All it needs is the guy from the dumpster fire that was Wild Irish Thyme who thought he was a bee, Although that was still more plausible than the actress who thought she could do an Irish accent.
edit – not mentioned but it seems to be be filmed in Ireland , so I mean he’d fit right in there .
The first paragraph of this review is written too incoherently, I have no idea what you’re talkiing about.
Wolf (no connection to 1994’s Jack Nicholson vehicle)Then what is even the point?
Wolf ‘94 is batshit insane, but totally worth it for James Spader’s completely off-the-wall performance.
Yeah it’s a gloriously goofy film. And Spader is a natural for monster movies somehow.
I haven’t seen the Nicholson Wolf since it came out on video (remember VHS??), but the scene where Jack starts pissing on the men’s room floor and simply said “I’m just marking my territory” sold it for me. He was clearly still in over the top Joker mode from Batman.
“…an obnoxious Catskills one-liner…”Is that where the transphobic meme originated, or is it just okay to malign everyone who lives in the Hudson Valley?
Not sure if you’re joking or honestly unaware of the whole legacy of Borscht Belt comedy.
This would have been a pretty watchable Rob Schneider movie in 2003.
I didn’t realize that furries needed their own terrible conversion therapy movie; but sure, why not.
Jeremy/Squirrel was actually pretty depressed throughout the film (“Why can’t you just let me be a squirrel?”), whereas Rufus (Fionn O’Shea), who identified as a German Shepherd, was the more gung ho character. And you’re right, he’s the one that I came away thinking about the most.